The Department of Labor has regularly attempted to anticipate trends in the
workforce and workplace to assist it in planning ways to better serve
Americas working people. Below is a sampling of these efforts.

Occupational outlook studies

In 1940, Congress authorized creation of the Occupational Outlook Service in
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Initially concerned with providing job
projections for use in employment counseling, the Service soon began developing
projections of workforce supply and labor needs for defense industries. After
World War II, the program provided projections for use in counseling veterans.
It also studied occupational realignments during the war to aid in planning the
demobilization.

Planning for the postWorld War II economy

In 1941, even before Pearl Harbor, Congress asked the Department to begin
studying labor-related problems likely to arise after the war, particularly the
issue of jobs and unemployment. In response, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
established a Labor Problems Division that conducted statistical and economic
research on employment problems which were expected to arise during
demobilization. The data the Division developed were used in demobilization and
postwar planning. Generally speaking, policymakers expected that unemployment
after demobilization would be the most serious economic problem. As it turned
out, returning servicemen and -women were quickly absorbed into a booming
postwar economy, and price inflation was the major economic problem.

Labor supply issues and technological change

During Secretary of Labor James Mitchells term (19531961), it
became increasingly clear that the problem of assuring an adequate supply of
trained workers would be a major responsibility of the Department. To prepare
policies for the development and full use of the countrys workforce,
Secretary Mitchell set up a special task force to administer a Skills of the
Work Force Program. One of the task forces main jobs was to determine
future workforce needs in a number of important occupations. One result of this
effort was the publication of a series of longterm studies of the types of
labor that would be needed in the 1960s and beyond. These studies revealed an
expected growth in employment opportunities that would produce some 87 million
jobs by 1970 (which turned out to be an overestimate), but they pointed to the
danger of a continuing lag in the number of skilled workers. The study
concluded that the participation of Americas black, older, and women
workers, as well as workers with disabilities, would be required. Out of
concern for expected labor short-ages, due in part to employment discrimination
against these groups, the Department began to lay plans for action programs to
improve their opportunities. The project also provided data on the impacts and
trends of automation that were used by other departments and by the Congress.

Building on efforts that began in the Eisenhower administration, in 1961
Secretary Arthur Goldberg created an Office of Automation and Manpower to deal
with employment problems created by automation and other technological
developments and to coordinate departmental research in this area. New studies
found that the greatest percentage of job growth was expected in professional
and technical occupations. Demand was also to increase for clerical and sales
personnel, skilled workers, managers, and those in service occupations.

In the early 1960s, the Departments Manpower Administration attempted
to develop more accurate methods of anticipating the effects of technological
change on employment in specific industries. In 1965, it launched a project
focused on employment trends from 1965 to 1975 in three industries thought to
be especially affected by technological change: industrial and engineering
design and drafting (significant negative effects found likely, but far in the
future); the telephone industry (moderate employment growth foreseen despite
significant technological changes); and the health service industry (rapid
increase in employment, jobs to be modified by new technology).

Manpower Report to the President

The Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 required the Department of
Labor to prepare an annual Manpower Report to the President. One of the
purposes of these Reports was to delineate future trends to help in developing
future program and policy directions.

There was an extensive section of the first Manpower Report (1963),
titled "The Manpower Future" and another section on "Looking
Ahead;" both focused on future government efforts needed in this area. The
report stated that, based on recommendations of the Presidents Committee
to Appraise Employment and Unemployment Statistics in 1962, there must be
deeper analysis of labor force data. In view of the many years of lead time
required in planning and implementing expansions in training programs, the
report was to look as far ahead as possible at future manpower needs and
resources.

The first report correctly predicted that during the 1960s, the expansion of
the womens labor force, especially of young women, would accelerate. It
did not, however, anticipate the dramatic growth in the number of women job
seekers that occurred. Its prediction was that by 1970 there would be 29.4
million women workers, an increase of 25 percent over the 1960 level. In fact
by 1970 there were 31.6 million, an increase of 36 percent. The prediction was
even further off for women labor force participants aged 25 through 45. The
1963 Report anticipated a 1970 level of 10.2 million, an increase of 8 percent
since 1960. Actual growth was to 11.7 million, a much sharper increase of 24
percent over the decade. The report also slightly overestimated the growth in
participation by men. The result was that a massive trend toward greater
participation by women relative to men was missed.

Seminars on manpower policy

Beginning in 1964 and continuing into 1968, the Manpower Administration
sponsored a series of seminars by leading experts on many aspects of work,
society, and the economy. Several of the seminars dealt with predicting the
future. At a 1967 seminar on professional manpower trends, speaker Dael Wolfle
discussed problems in projecting into the future. He noted that "we can be
fairly confident that some unexpected things will happen, so we hedge our
projections by assuming that certain conditions or related trends will
continue, and we give ourselves an escape route by warning that all bets are
off if our assumptions turn out to be inaccurate. How well have we done? I
think not very well." He cited a 1954 commission on training that
projected 12,000 doctoral degrees would be awarded in 1970. Yet almost 30,000
doctorates were actually granted in 1970.

In 1965 industrial engineer Dr. E.R.F.W. Crossman gave a seminar on
automation, skill, and manpower predictions. He hypothesized that automation of
industry would come in two phases. First, direct production work would be
largely eliminated, leaving a fairly constant staff whose size would not be
directly dependent on demand for products. The marginal labor requirement would
approach zero. This would have important implications for the business cycle. A
second, longer-run phase of automation would significantly reduce that fairly
constant labor force.

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy

In July 1963, Secretary Willard Wirtz established the predecessor of the
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy. Created at the instigation of and
then headed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, its function was to enable the
Secretary to understand and anticipate changes affecting workers. Early on, the
Office worked on a five-year plan to achieve a fully trained and employed
workforce.

In 1970, the Office helped prepare the pamphlet U.S. Manpower in the
1970s: Opportunity and Challenge. It dealt with the next ten years
economic and labor force growth, demographics of a younger labor force, African
Americans share of the economy, and increasing numbers of working women
and what that meant.

Womens Bureau future-oriented effort in Carter administration

During the Carter administration, the Womens Bureau devoted itself
wholeheartedly to anticipating future needs of the rapidly growing number of
women in the workforce. Termed by labor economists the most important labor
phenomenon of the twentieth century, this trend was expected, from the
perspective of the late 1970s, to continue well into the future. The overriding
concern of the Bureau in this period was how to accommodate the increasing
numbers of women in the workplace, how they would be distributed in the various
occupations, and what services should be provided that would improve their
opportunities and working conditions.

In 1978, the Womens Bureau Director began reporting directly to the
Secretary of Labor instead of to an Assistant Secretary. This change enhanced
the Bureaus ability to deal with future trends and issues. Recognizing
the unmet and steadily growing needs of women for support such as employment
training, child care and flexible work arrangements, old age income security,
and freedom from hazards and harassment on the job, the Bureau developed a
three-pronged approach on these issues of the future. The strategy included
policy development, outreach, and information dissemination.

Through its policy development efforts, the Bureau most effectively
expressed and pursued its concerns about the future of women in the workplace.
Policy staff identified and studied issues and emerging trends through
statistical and legislative analysis, research, and interaction with experts in
the various fields under study. They then developed policy recommendations for
the Secretary of Labor and other federal officials. For example, acting on
projected trend lines for women in the workplace, the Bureau successfully
sought inclusion of measures in Comprehensive Employment and Training Act
amendments that improved the provision of employment services to women. The
Bureau also applied policy development efforts in such areas as equal
employment opportunity for women in the construction industry, preventing sex
discrimination and harassment in the workplace generally, issues of women
business owners, and job safety and health for women.

The Bureau anticipated that, as womens labor force participation rates
rocketed to a projected 65 percent by 1990 (an overestimate of about 7
percentage points), it would have a larger role in dealing with the rapidly
changing and growing needs of women workers. Among efforts that would need
attention from the Bureau were: changing outdated perceptions about the role of
women in the economy; greater assistance to women below the poverty line;
improving job opportunities for women in nontraditional occupations and
high-technology jobs; and providing more services and flexibility to meet
family needs.

Bureau of LaborManagement Relations and Cooperative Programs

In response to the Reagan administrations interest in improving
industrial productivity and in making labor relations less adversarial, in May
1984 the Department established the Bureau of LaborManagement Relations
and Cooperative Programs (BLMRCP) as the focal point of federal efforts to
encourage the growth of quality-of-work life pro-grams. It gathered and
analyzed information on labormanagement issues and trends and carried out
an extensive research program.

Based on recommendations by three Presidential panels which studied ways to
improve competitiveness in the 1980s and afterward, BLMRCP developed a number
of future-oriented conferences and publications to help labor and management
professionals improve the labor-relations climate.

Workforce 2000

Secretary William Brock (19851987) commissioned a study by the Hudson
Institute titled Workforce 2000: Work and Workers in the Twenty-first
Century (1987). The study identified major economic trends, such as healthy
economic growth, a reduced manufacturing sector, higher skill demands in the
service sector, and slow workforce growth. Based on these projections, the
Institute suggested a set of goals, including: improving the education of all
workers, accelerating productivity, insuring continuing training and education
of the aging workforce, dealing with needs of families and working women, and
better integrating minorities into the economy.

Decades latersimilar concerns

While many of these initiatives were considered decades ago, their concerns
are echoed today. The forces of globalization, and more particularly
technology, are driving employers and workers decisions in ways not
contemplated as recently as the late 1980s and early 1990s. But these forces
have not changed workers basic goals.

Three themes still shape our goals for the future:

How do we ensure that workers have the skills that provide lifelong
economic security?

How do we accommodate workers needs to balance their jobs with caring
for their families?

How do we ensure that all workers have opportunities in Americas
workforce and that our diverse population works in safe and fair workplaces?

In the haste to address challenges as fast as they present themselves,
policy and decisionmakers will do well to remember that workers needs
have long remained constant.